HISTORIC
AIRCRAFT WRECKS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY MILITARY CIVILIAN FIREBOMBERS PSA FLT 182
SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH by G.
PAT MACHA 2016
Clear weather and a natural
harbor made San Diego an early aviation hub, but success in flight came with
devastating tragedies. The remains of more than four hundred aircraft lie
scattered across the county s deserts and mountains. Experts estimate that
dozens more are on the ocean floor off the coast. In 1922, army pilot Charles
F. Webber s DeHavilland biplane went missing over Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.
In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 178 collided midair over San Diego
and crashed in the residential North Park neighborhood, claiming the lives of
144 people in what was the worst airline disaster of the era. Author and
aircraft accident research specialist G. Pat Macha recounts these and other
stories of astonishing survival, heroism and heartbreaking fatality."
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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia
Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Flight 182 was a
Boeing 727-214 commercial airliner, registration, N533PS that collided with a
private Cessna 172 light aircraft, registration, N7711G over San Diego,
California, at 9:01 am on Monday, September 25, 1978. It was Pacific Southwest
Airlines' first fatal accident.
Both aircraft crashed into North Park, a San Diego
neighborhood. Flight 182 impacted just north of the intersection of Dwight and
Nile, killing all 135 people aboard the aircraft and seven people on the ground
in houses, including two children. The Cessna impacted on Polk Ave. between
32nd St. and Iowa St. killing the two on board. Nine others on the ground were
injured and 22 homes were destroyed or damaged by the impact and debris.
On the morning of Monday, September 25, 1978,
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 departed Sacramento for San Diego via Los
Angeles. The seven-person, San Diego-based crew consisted of Captain James
McFeron, 42; First Officer Robert Fox, 38; Flight Engineer Martin Wahne, 44;
and four flight attendants. The flight from Sacramento to Los Angeles was
uneventful. At 8:34 a.m., Flight 182 departed Los Angeles. First Officer Fox
was the pilot flying. There were 128 passengers on board including 29 PSA employees.
The weather in San Diego that morning was sunny and clear with 10 miles (16 km)
of visibility.
At 8:59 a.m., the PSA crew was alerted by the
approach controller about a small Cessna 172 Skyhawk aircraft nearby. The
Cessna was being flown by two licensed pilots. One was Martin Kazy Jr., 32, who
possessed single-engine, multiengine, and instrument flight ratings, as well as
a commercial certificate and an instrument flight instructor certificate. He
had flown a total of 5,137 hours. The other, David Boswell, 35, a U.S. Marine
Corps Sergeant, possessed single-engine and multiengine ratings and a commercial
certificate. He had flown 407 hours at the time of the accident, and was
practicing instrument landing system approaches under the instruction of Kazy
in pursuit of his instrument rating. They had departed from Montgomery Field
and were navigating under visual flight rules, which did not require the filing
of a flight plan. Boswell was wearing a "hood" to limit his field of
vision straight ahead to the cockpit panel, much like an oversized sun visor
with vertical panels to block peripheral vision, which is normal in IFR
training. At the time of the collision, the Cessna was on the missed approach
(in visual meteorological conditions) from Lindbergh's Runway 9, heading east
and climbing. The Cessna was in communication with San Diego approach control.
The PSA pilots reported that they saw the Cessna
after being notified of its position by ATC, although cockpit voice recordings
revealed that, shortly thereafter, the PSA pilots no longer had the Cessna in
sight and they were speculating about its position. Lindbergh tower heard the
09.00:50 transmission as "He's passing off to our right" and assumed
the PSA jet had the Cessna in sight.
After getting permission to land, and about 40
seconds before colliding with the Cessna, the conversation among the four
occupants of the cockpit (Captain, First Officer, Flight Engineer, and the
off-duty PSA Captain, Spencer Nelson, who was riding in the cockpit's jump
seat) was, as follows, showing the confusion.
Despite the captain's comment that the Cessna was
"probably behind us now," it was actually directly in front of and
below the Boeing. The PSA plane was descending and rapidly closing in on the
small plane, which had taken a right turn to the east, deviating from the
assigned course. According to the report issued by the National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB), the Cessna may have been a difficult visual target for the
jet's pilots, as it was below them and blended in with the multicolored houses
of the residential area beneath; the Cessna's fuselage was yellow, and most of
the houses were a yellowish color. Also, the apparent motion of the Cessna as
viewed from the Boeing was minimized, as both planes were on approximately the
same course. The report said that another possible reason that the PSA aircrew
had difficulty observing the Cessna was that its fuselage was made visually
smaller due to foreshortening. However, the same report in another section also
stated that "the white surface of the Cessna's wing could have presented a
relatively bright target in the morning sunlight."
A visibility study cited in the NTSB report
concluded that the Cessna should have been almost centered in the windshield of
the Boeing from 170 to 90 seconds before the collision, and thereafter it was
probably positioned on the lower portion of the windshield just above the
windshield wipers. The study also said that the Cessna pilot would have had
about a 10-second view of the Boeing from the left-door window about 90 seconds
before the collision, but visibility of the overtaking jet was blocked by the
Cessna's ceiling structure for the remainder of the time.
Flight 182's crew never explicitly alerted the
tower that they had lost sight of the Cessna. If they had made this clear to
controllers, the crash might not have happened. Also, if the Cessna had
maintained the heading of 70° assigned to it by ATC instead of turning to 90°,
the NTSB estimates the planes would have missed each other by about 1000 feet
(300 meters) instead of colliding. Ultimately, the NTSB maintained that,
regardless of that change in course, it was the responsibility of the crew in
the overtaking jet to comply with the regulatory requirement to pass "well
clear" of the Cessna.
Approach Control on the ground picked up an
automated conflict alert 19 seconds before the collision but did not relay this
information to the aircraft because, according to the approach coordinator,
such alerts were commonplace even when no actual conflict existed. The NTSB
stated: "Based on all information available to him, he decided that the
crew of Flight 182 were complying with their visual separation clearance; that
they were accomplishing an overtake maneuver within the separation parameters
of the conflict alert computer; and that, therefore, no conflict existed."
PSA Flight 182 overtook the Cessna, which was
directly below it, both roughly on a 090 (due east) heading. The collision
occurred at about 2,600 feet (790 m). According to several witnesses on the
ground, first, they heard a loud metallic "crunching" sound, then an
explosion, and a fire drew them to look up.
Staff photographer Hans Wendt of the San Diego
County Public Relations Office was attending an outdoor press event with a
still camera and was able to take two post-collision photographs of the falling
727, its right wing burning. Cameraman Steve Howell from local TV channel 39
was attending the same event and captured the Cessna on film as it fell to
earth, the sound of the impacting 727, and the mushroom cloud from the
resulting crash. For its coverage of the disaster, The San Diego Evening
Tribune, a predecessor to The San Diego Union-Tribune, was awarded a Pulitzer
Prize in 1979 for "Local, General, or Spot News Reporting".
The wreckage of the Cessna plummeted to the
ground, its vertical stabilizer torn from its fuselage and bent leftward, its
debris hitting around 3,500 feet (1,100 m) northwest of where the 727 went
down. PSA 182's right wing was heavily damaged, rendering the plane
uncontrollable and sending it careening into a sharp right bank (clearly seen
in the Wendt photos), and the fuel tank inside it ruptured and started a fire,
when this final conversation took place inside the cockpit.
Flight 182 struck a house 3 miles (4.8 km)
northeast of Lindbergh Field, in a residential section of San Diego known as
North Park. It impacted at a 300 mph (480 km/h), nose-down attitude while
banked 50° to the right. Seismographic readings indicated that the impact
occurred at 09:02:07, about 2.5 seconds after the cockpit voice recorder lost
power. The plane crashed just west of the I-805 freeway, around 30 feet (9.1 m)
north of the intersection of Dwight and Nile Streets, with the bulk of the
debris field spreading in a northeast to southwesterly direction towards
Boundary Street. One of the plane's wings lodged in a house. The coordinates
for the Boeing crash site are in the infobox. The largest piece of the Cessna
impacted about six blocks away near 32nd Street and Polk Avenue. The
coordinates for the Cessna crash site are 32°45′7.97″N 117°7′32.57″W. The
explosion and fire from the 727 crashing created a mushroom cloud that could be
seen for miles (and was photographed and filmed), About 60% of the entire San
Diego Fire Department was ultimately dispatched to the scene, and first
responders said nothing resembling an airplane was anywhere to be seen, since
the impact, explosion, and fires had completely destroyed the 727 with no
sizable components remaining except the engines, empennage, and landing gear.
However, the impact and debris area was relatively small due to the plane's
steep, nose-down angle.
In total, 144 people lost their lives in the
disaster, including Flight 182's seven crew members, 30 additional PSA
employees deadheading to PSA's San Diego base, the two Cessna occupants, and
seven residents (five women, two male children) on the ground.
At the nearby St. Augustine High School, a triage
and command and control center was established, with its gymnasium being used
as a makeshift morgue and for forensic investigation. Freezer units were used
to preserve the biological remains, as San Diego was in the middle of a severe
heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 100 °F (37.8 °C).
National Transportation Safety Board report number
NTSB/AAR-79-05, released April 19, 1979, determined that the probable cause of
the accident was the failure of the PSA flight crew to follow proper air
traffic control (ATC) procedures. Flight 182's crew lost sight of the Cessna in
contravention of ATC instructions to "keep visual separation from that
traffic", and did not alert ATC that they had lost sight of it. Errors on
the part of ATC were also named as contributing factors, including the use of
visual separation procedures when radar clearances were available.
Additionally, the Cessna pilots, for reasons unknown, did not maintain their
assigned east-northeasterly heading of 070° after completing a practice instrument
approach, nor did they notify ATC of their course change. Concerning this, the
NTSB report states, "According to the testimony of the controllers and the
assistant chief flight instructor of the Gibbs Flite Center (owner of the
Cessna), the 08:59:56 transmission from approach control to the Cessna only
imposed an altitude limitation on the pilot, he was not required to maintain
the 070° heading. However, the assistant chief flight instructor testified that
he would expect the [Cessna] pilot to fly the assigned heading or inform the
controller that he was not able to do so."
A dissenting opinion in the NTSB crash report by
member Francis H. McAdams strongly questioned why the unauthorized change in
course by the Cessna was not specifically cited as a "contributing
factor" in the final report; instead, it was listed as simply a
"finding," which carries less weight. McAdams also "sharply
disagreed" with the majority of the panel on other issues, giving more
weight to inadequate ATC procedures as another "probable cause" to
the accident, rather than merely treating them as a contributing factor.
McAdams also added the "possible misidentification of the Cessna by the
PSA aircrew due to the presence of a third unknown aircraft in the area"
as a contributing factor. The majority panel members did not cite this as a
credible possibility. In an August 1982 amendment to the probable-cause
finding, the NTSB adopted McAdams viewpoints regarding both ATC and pilot
failings.
The report states that in the PSA cockpit, some
conversation in the cockpit was not relevant to the flight during critical
phases of the flight. The report states that the conversation was not a causal
factor in the accident, but that "it does point out the dangers inherent
in this type of cockpit environment during descent and approach to
landing."
The two photographs of Flight 182 taken by Hans
Wendt revealed that the left wing flaps were extended as the crew tried
hopelessly to steer the crippled aircraft and that the right wing had a large
piece missing where the Cessna had struck. Although it was obvious that the
flaps were damaged or destroyed from the collision, NTSB investigators could
not determine the condition of the hydraulic system in the wing and whether the
plumbing inside it had actually been ruptured or merely flattened. Since the right
wing was extremely fragmented, examination of debris provided no useful
information. It was thought[who?] that the crew may have tried to guide the 727
away from impacting a residential area and onto Route 805 where damage would be
lessened, but could not do so, and the final conclusion of the NTSB was that
even if the hydraulic lines in the right wing were undamaged, the missing flaps
and spreading fire would have adversely affected the plane's aerodynamic
profile and in all likelihood, Flight 182 was completely uncontrollable after
the collision.
In the aftermath of the devastation on the ground,
a controversy was renewed in San Diego over the placement of such a busy
airport in a heavily populated area. Despite proposals to relocate it, San
Diego International Airport, the busiest single-runway commercial airport in
the U.S., remains in use.[8] The crash site was cordoned off by police and
remained so for an entire year.
At the time, PSA Flight 182 was the U.S.'s
deadliest commercial air disaster, surpassed eight months later on Friday, May
25, 1979, when American Airlines Flight 191 (a McDonnell Douglas DC-10) crashed
in Chicago.
As a result of the crash, the NTSB recommended the
immediate implementation of a Terminal Radar Service Area around Lindbergh
Field to provide for the separation of aircraft, as well as an immediate review
of control procedures for all busy terminal areas. This initial rule did not
include small, general-aviation aircraft. Therefore, on May 15, 1980, the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), implemented what is called Class B
airspace to provide for the separation of all aircraft operating in the area.
Additionally, all aircraft, regardless of size, are required to operate under
"positive radar control", a rule that allows only radar control from
the ground for all aircraft operating in the airport's airspace.
At the time of the crash, Lindbergh Field was the
only airport in San Diego County with an instrument landing system. Since the
Cessna pilot was practicing instrument landings, the FAA quickly installed the
system at Montgomery Field and McClellan-Palomar Airport, as well as a
localizer approach to Gillespie Field, to allow pilots to practice at smaller
airports.
As a result of this and other midair collisions
(including an almost identical one in 1986) the "Traffic Collision Alert
and Avoidance System" (TCAS) is now installed in all commercial passenger
aircraft and in most commercial cargo airplanes. TCAS gives the pilots visual
and audible warnings in the cockpit when two aircraft are approaching each
other, and directs pilots to either climb or descend to avoid the other
aircraft. However, the system only works if at least one aircraft is equipped
with TCAS and the other with a transponder. After the 1986 Cerritos collision,
all flights in Class B were required to have a Mode C transponder. The
International Civil Aviation Organization does not require TCAS on the type of
small, single-engined planes that were involved in the PSA disaster or the one
involving AeroMexico. Only aircraft certified to carry 19 or more passengers or
have a MGTOW of more than 12,600 lb are affected by the TCAS rule.
Because the PSA 182/Cessna collision was the
result of pilot error, it is used as a teaching aid in modern flight training.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University uses the crash in "human
factors" classes, with others refer to it while teaching airspace or
visual separation rules.[citation needed]
The
midair collision contributed to Lindbergh Field being ranked 10th among the
world's Most Extreme Airports in a two-hour documentary of the same name
released in July 2010, which aired in the U.S. on the History Channel.